1. Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a cigarette manufacturing process and, more particularly, to a cigarette package coding system and associated method.
2. Description of Related Art
Many mass-produced products are required to incorporate various coding schemes, for example, for regulatory purposes or for commercial tracking. Often, such coding must be marked directly on the product and/or on the package containing the product, and the accuracy and repeatability of the application of such coding is generally of high importance in forming a commercializable product. That is, if the coding is not applied in a particular manner, the product may be deemed to be “defective” and not suitable for sale. Accordingly, in a high speed manufacturing process, the application of the coding to the products/packages must be accomplished in an accurate and repeatable manner, and desirably at a high throughput speed.
However, such printing of the code on the product(s) in a high speed manufacturing process may be at risk of, for example, low print quality, uneven printing, misalignment of the code, a substantive error in the code (i.e., the wrong code), or other condition(s) deemed to comprise a defect. In such instances, it may be critical for such defects to be detected, wherein such defects may desirably be both qualitative as well as substantive, and for the product with the defectively-printed code to be removed from the manufacturing process, as soon as possible after the code is printed on the product, before the defective product can be further processed. It may also be desirable for the defective product to be removed from the manufacturing process without disturbing or affecting other non-defective products, and for the process to compensate or adjust for the absence of the defective product, once removed. It may also be desirable to have the capability of analyzing the defects, as well as patterns or trends in the defects, detected during the manufacturing process so as to, for example, allow root causes and remedial action to be determined, or to halt the process before too many defective products are produced. It may also be desirable for such a system and method to be installed in new manufacturing processes, or retrofitted into existing manufacturing processes, in a relatively simple and straightforward arrangement and configuration.